LINGUISTIC MINORITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

IREPP / UC LMRI

Patricia Gándara, Russell W. Rumberger

December 30, 2006

This paper examines the amount and type of resources that linguistic minority students-those students who come from households where a language other than English is a spoken-need to meet the same challenging standards and to have the opportunity to achieve the same educational outcomes as other students. In this paper we first describe the nature of the linguistic minority population in California. We then develop a conceptual framework for analyzing their resource needs. Subsequently, we review existing studies that have attempted to estimate the resource needs for this population. Drawing on these existing studies and the results of new data collection, we describe the nature of the resources needed to provide an adequate education for California's English learners. We conclude with policy recommendations about how to approach estimating the real dollar costs of educating English learners and linguistic minority students.

Paper prepared for "Getting Down to Facts: A Research Project to Inform Solutions to California's Education Problems," a research project of more than 20 studies designed to provide California's policy-makers and other education stakeholders with the comprehensive information they need to raise student achievement and reposition California as an education leader.

UC LMRI / CFTL / PACE

Patricia Gándara, Julie Maxwell-Jolly and Anne Driscoll

May 2005

Students in California's public schools come from a wide variety of ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. Almost 1.6 million, approximately 25%, of these youngsters are classified as English Learners or "ELs" and require special assistance from their teachers and schools to meet the state's rigorous academic content standards while also learning English.

With 32% of all EL students in the country, California has a higher concen- tration of English learners than anywhere else in the U.S. California's growth in EL students is also greater than the rest of the nation. Most of the state's English learners, 85%, are Spanish speakers, with only five other language groups (Vietnamese, Filipino, Cantonese, Hmong, Korean) even reaching the level of 1 to 2 percent of the EL population. The rest of the state's EL students speak one of 51 other primary languages catalogued in the latest California language census. An additional one million students come from homes where a language other than English is spoken. Overall, students who speak a language other than English at home account for 40% of California's K-12 school population. Addressing the education needs of this population of students is critical to California's future not only because of their increasing numbers, but because the majority of these students are not thriving in California schools.

As long as students with limited English language skills have attended California schools a debate has raged among educators and policy-makers regarding how best to educate these children. A major focal point of this debate is bilingual education. That is, the viability, advisability, and effectiveness of using students' primary language in instruction. However, everyone agrees that ELs must learn English, learn it well, and meet rigorous standards. No matter what the method or program of instruction, teachers of English language learners need special skills and training to effectively accomplish this task.

UC LMRI / PACE (PACE Policy Brief #04-9)

Margaret Bridges, Bruce Fuller, Russell Rumberger, Loan Tran

September 2004

Preschool programs hold the promise of raising children's developmental proficiencies and their capacity to thrive at school. Previous research has shown that exposure to high-quality, carefully crafted preschool can boost early cognitive and language development among children from low-income families. This claim has received ample empirical support across several studies conducted over the past three decades. Yet much remains unknown, including how preschool programs of varying quality affect diverse groups of children. This is particularly important as several California counties embark on ambitious and costly efforts to widen children's access to preschool, and the state's demographic make-up becomes increasingly heterogeneous.

UC LMRI / The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL)

Patricia Gándara and Julie Maxwell-Jolly

2000

For most of the last two decades there has been a protracted national debate over the status of the education of our youth (Berliner & Biddle, 1996). The conclusion reached by many is that American students are ill-prepared for the educational and economic challenges of a post-industrial society. This conclusion has been mirrored in the public debate in California and has led to a series of reform efforts aimed at stemming the decline in test scores, re-examining the skills that our schools should be teaching, and increasing the overall achievement of students. To accomplish these goals, we have seen major initiatives in the areas of curriculum reform, student and teacher assessment, class-size reduction, and experimentation with school organization and governance, such as block scheduling and charter schools.